One Cold, Bitter Night
by Gojita The Saiyan Princess
Summary: It's New Years Eve and a poor little girl is left to roam the streets on this cold, bitter night! Please read & review!


Disclaimer: I don't own Hey Arnold...  
N/A: A parody of a little story I know..but I'm not telling you. I know it's past New Years, but it took a while to think and remember the story in order to reverse it...enjoy!  
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One Cold, Bitter Night.  
  
By Tyra  
One cold, bitter night . . . a little 10 year old girl with blonde hair in pigtails and wearing a pink dress and a pink bow in her hair, roamed the streets in the cold, moist midnight air trying to survive and avoiding to ever go back home.   
  
It was New Year's Eve and the snowclad streets were deserted. From brightly lit windows came the tinkle of laughter and the sound of singing. One of the windows she looked in was that of the boarding house of the little boy she liked so well. She watched for a moment or two at their happy faces...he truely does have it better than her, even though his parents are gone he still had others that love and adore him. She however, had no one, not even her biological family loved her let alone remember her name to even care for her. She was often neglected, so much that the pain consumed her. 'But then gain, I don't deserve anything but pain.' She thought. 'For all the pain I've caused him...he really deserves happiness and I...deserve nothing, not even to be alive.' She then looked around the neighborhood and saw people were getting ready to bring in the New Year. But the poor little girl sat sadly beside the fountain. Her ragged dress and worn shawl did not keep out the cold and she tried to keep her bare feet from touching the frozen ground. Her clothes were torn from escaping the wrath of her hot-headed, power and money greedy father. She had upsetted him again by failing another one of her test and the refusal of obeying him. He had beat her so bad for that, that she became so frighten that she ran out into the cold barefooted as her clothes tore even more by hitting fences and other sharp objects, hence forth on how she is so brused with tones of bleeding scratches. She hadn't eaten all day and she was frightened to go home, for her father would certainly be angry and beat her. It wouldn't be much warmer anyway, in the feeling of not being loved was much colder than the snow that falls to the ground. The little girl's fingers were stiff with cold. If only she could light a match! She did bring some with her just incase of it being cold as it is tonight, but what would her father say at such a waste! Falteringly she took out a match and lit it. What a nice warm flame! The little girl cupped her hand over it, and as she did so, she magically saw in its light a big brightly burning stove.   
  
She held out her hands to the heat, but just then the match went out and the vision faded. The night seemed blacker than before and it was getting colder. A shiver ran through the little girl's thin body.   
  
After hesitating for a long time, she struck another match on the wall, and this time, the glimmer turned the wall into a great sheet of crystal. Beyond that stood a fine table laden with food and lit by a candlestick. Holding out her arms towards the plates, the little blonde seemed to pass through the glass, but then the match went out and the magic faded. Poor thing: in just a few seconds she had caught a glimpse of almost everything that life had denied her: warmth and good things to eat. Her eyes filled with tears and she lifted her gaze to the lit windows, praying that she too might know a little of such happiness, let alone to be loved.   
  
She lit the third match and an even more wonderful thing happened. There stood a Christmas tree hung with hundreds of candles, glittering with tinsel and coloured balls. "Oh, how lovely!" exclaimed the little girl, holding up the match. Then, the match burned her finger and flickered out. The light from the Christmas candles rose higher and higher, then one of the lights fell, leaving a trail behind it. "Someone is dying," murmured the little girl, as she remembered her beloved Granny, the only one that truely loved her, who used to say: "When a star falls, a heart stops beating...and an angle is sent to them!"   
  
Scarcely aware of what she was doing, the cold little one lit another match. This time, she saw her grandmother.   
  
"Granny, stay with me!" she pleaded, as she lit one match after the other, so that her grandmother could not disappear like all the other visions. However, Granny did not vanish, but gazed smilingly at her. Then she opened her arms and the little girl hugged her crying: "Granny, take me away with you!"   
  
A cold day dawned and a pale sun shone on the fountain and the icy road. Close by lay the lifeless body of a little girl surrounded by spent matches. "Poor little thing!" exclaimed the passersby. "She was trying to keep warm!" Even the children at her school, talked endlessly about her, even the boy she liked so well.  
  
But by that time, the little blonde girl was far away where there is neither cold, hunger nor pain.   
-- End   
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So, what do you think? I know...it's rather sad...it makes me cry to even write it let alone read it! But please, tell me what you think. 


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